


The Yeast We Could Brew

by lady_ragnell



Category: Leverage
Genre: Bad Puns, Beer, Gen, Implied Relationships, Multi, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 07:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: Amy spends a lot of time around the brewpub, and guesses a thing or two while her bosses argue about what to name a new beer.





	The Yeast We Could Brew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleprelude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleprelude/gifts).



> Written for tumblr user **littleprelude** for a fic-for-charity post, who wanted fluffy Leverage OT3! Somehow this ended up in my head, and I hope it does the job.
> 
> The title is courtesy of the wonderful **socpuppet** , one of my partners in puns.

Amy sticks around the brewpub even when she's not on shift, after Parker saves her from the kidnappers. She figures, after some thought, that even if Parker and the rest of the people around her are kind of scary when she looks past the weird Portland business owner surface, they're the kind of scary that will probably save her if someone else decides she looks like a good target. They're always traveling off too, with excuses about restaurant owner conferences that Amy doesn't buy even if they exist whenever she googles them, but it still feels safer in the brewpub than it feels outside of it.

Tonight, though, they're around, and Amy is partly sketching and partly listening to Parker try to come up with names for Hardison's new (and probably undrinkable) microbrew. “Ooh, the Pasa Doble!” she's saying from the kitchen. She's just as enthusiastic as she was ten minutes ago when she suggested “The Mummy's Tiara,” even though she's been shot down every time with her list of really weird names.

“I kind of like that one,” Hardison admits, and Amy can just imagine the way he looks, grinning at Parker and egging her on.

When he starts egging Parker on, Eliot probably isn't far from making some kind of comment, and sure enough, the next thing she hears is a quiet “Damn it, Parker. Name like that, we'd have to revamp the whole menu. It's hard enough getting dishes to match Hardison's experiments, we don't need to make it harder.”

Eliot is hard to figure out. Amy has bets with herself about what his deal is, but all she knows is he's terrifying and that whenever he's in the kitchen with Hardison and Parker the menu ends up revamped sometime in the next week. The line cooks are all equal parts terrified and impressed with him, but nobody's got any idea what he is. Hardison's the owner, Parker's his girlfriend, and Eliot is … something. Menu consultant. Voice of pessimism.

Amy's got a few ideas other people don't, but she keeps her mouth shut about what she sees and hears after hours, which she bets is the only reason they let her stick around.

“Glengarry Glen Death,” says Parker, undeterred, and Hardison starts laughing.

“Sure, Parker, let's make everyone think we're going to poison them.”

“Glengarry Glen Beer,” she parries, and Amy tries to keep her snort quiet. It's not quiet enough, apparently, because a second later Parker pokes her head out of the kitchen, smiling triumphantly. “See, Amy thinks it's funny. Amy, tell them it's funny.”

Hardison and Eliot poke their heads around the edge of the door like a Scooby Doo cartoon, and Amy tries very hard to keep her face straight. “People are going to be confused,” Eliot says, in a kind of threatening way, which is how he says most things.

Amy shrugs. “People name beers really weird things. This is Portland, and beer people are already pretty weird. It doesn't roll off the tongue, but it could be worse.”

Hardison pokes Parker in the side. “See? Amy thinks it doesn't roll off the tongue.”

Eliot frowns at Amy for long enough that she thinks maybe her welcome has run out. “You try the beer. Maybe you've got better naming ideas than these two.”

Amy has learned, over her time at the brewpub, to be wary of Hardison's experimental brews, but she's pretty sure Eliot wouldn't try to poison her. Parker might think it was funny to make her taste something bad, and Hardison genuinely seems to think his beer is fine, but Eliot cares about the menu. It can't be terrible. She has to tell herself that a few more times before she takes a sip, though.

To her relief, it's not bad. She wouldn't exactly call herself a beer expert, but it's better than the grocery store beer she tried at a few high school parties, if maybe not as good as what she got to bring to movie night with some friends a while ago, so she can be honest about her smile. “I don't know how you name beers,” she admits, because all of them are kind of staring at her. “There's only so many beer puns in the world, you know?”

Hardison nods, solemn and sad. “Do you know how many beers there are in this world called Three Beers? Like three cheers?”

Probably not a lot, because that name kind of sucks, but Amy knows how to be tactful. “Hop-hop-hooray?” she offers, conciliatory.

Hardison grins. “We are not paying you enough.” He elbows Eliot. “Beer-y Distinctive?”

“I told you, man, no way.”

“Lager Than Life,” Amy tries.

Parker makes a face. “Wasn't that a Beach Boys song?”

“Backstreet Boys,” corrects Eliot, a lot more patiently than usual, and Amy would not have guessed that he knew anything about the boy bands of the nineties, but apparently she's just in for a lot of surprises tonight, because Hardison puts his arm around Eliot's shoulder and Eliot actually leans into it. Amy knew he wasn't just a menu consultant, but she doesn't know what this means, either.

“Leave Lager Than Life for when AJ McClean inevitably starts a line of beers trying to capitalize on his fame,” says Hardison.

Parker is grinning, and Amy watches all three of them, kind of bemused. Eliot only stays still for a minute before he sniffs the air and turns to whatever he's got cooking on the stove that is going to match the latest brew perfectly. Hardison drops his arm, but he and Parker are still both looking at Eliot, and it's not that different from how they look at each other, she thinks. There was some trip a few weeks back, and the next time she saw Eliot he was limping, and he's been around a lot more since then.

A second later, Parker looks back at _her_ , sharp, and Amy thinks maybe she's being let in on something not a lot of people get to see.

“Free Beer,” she tries, her way of saying she's not going to tell anyone about it, if she even knows what she's seeing. She's got her suspicions, but Parker and her people are pretty good at smashing her assumptions to hell. “For a name, I mean.”

Eliot snorts, to her surprise. “Irony.” He looks over his shoulder at Amy. “If you're sticking around for a few minutes, I've got a new pasta dish I think will go well with this. These two don't know what they're talking about, so you'd be helping.”

“Yeah. I could stick around.” She jerks her head at the front room of the restaurant. “But I've got some work to finish. I'll yell if I come up with a good name or something, or you call me back when it's ready.”

None of them objects, so Amy goes out, but she keeps her ears on them more than she keeps her eyes on her sketchbook. For a while, there's silence, either the kind that comes with complete comfort with each other or the kind that comes from other things, and either way, that tells her a lot about her assumptions and whether or not they're true, she thinks.

“Fiddle Game,” Parker says finally. “We should call the beer Fiddle Game.”

Amy doesn't know why that, of all the beer names that have been suggested in her hearing, seems to work. It doesn't make sense to her, and it definitely isn't a pun, but Eliot makes an approving kind of grunt and Hardison laughs and says “Fiddle Game. Yeah, I think I like that.”

“New from Thief Juice,” Parker says, low and growly like she's trying to do a weird announcer voice and an impression of Eliot at the same time, which makes no sense. “Fiddle Game! It's a—”

“So help me God, woman, you are never making a slogan again,” says Hardison, but there's a really familiar sound after that, and Amy goes back to staring at her sketchbook.

When she looks up, to the sound of familiar bickering, Eliot is watching her from the kitchen entrance. Mostly he looks scary, but she thinks maybe he's making sure she doesn't think whatever is going on is weird. Which, of course it is, Amy would expect nothing less, but it's a good weird. Or at least judging from the fact that Eliot actually cracks a smile when she does, she thinks it is.

“Come on back,” says Eliot. “I don't trust them to help me plate it up.”

When she goes back to the kitchen, they're all standing pretty close, or at least Hardison and Eliot are standing close to where Parker is sitting on one of the counters.

“Fiddle Game sounds pretty cool,” she says, since all three of them are looking at her and she has to say _something_ , even if she has no idea why they're all so into it when she's never heard any of them play the violin.

“Yeah,” says Parker, smug as anything, “it really does.”

**Author's Note:**

> Amy discovers a paycheck or two later that they've decided to give her all the profits from this particular line of beers, which she decides is probably a thank you for being cool about the whole polyamory thing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Yeast We Could Brew](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924147) by [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/pseuds/dapatty)




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